Chasm
by Ofelia Nat
Summary: Three years since the ceremonial shutdown of the Supercomputer. Three years of growing apart. Three years of dormancy. Three words that forever change their lives: XANA is back.
1. Chapter 1

The sound of the late afternoon downpour against the window sill is deafening, and Aelita wakes with a start. Her left arm is numb from being between her body and the cold tile floor. Sitting up and stretching her arm out, she looks around at the state she left the kitchen when she had dozed off. All of the cabinets are wide open, as are all of the drawers beneath them. What was formerly in disarray is neat and tidy, and much more suitable for a home.

Aelita takes a deep breath as she hoists herself up from the ground, inhaling the smell of the old wood of the Hermitage, now tinged with the scent of Pine Sol. It is always bittersweet to be in her old childhood home, filled with memories of love and laughter. Of course, the negative memories will always remain—the hours of silence to avoid detection from the government, the shame of being unable to tell her friends why she couldn't invite them over for playdates or sleepovers.

But what would she have told them anyway? Her father and mother never did divulge any details back then, for she was only a little girl. Anytime she had asked, she had gotten the exact same response: "It's just not safe, honey."

No matter. _That is a thing of the past_ , she tells herself. _No time to lament what happened sixteen years ago when I can barely make it through the present_ , she further scolds herself.

She isn't wrong in her thinking. The summer vacation is over in one more day, and tomorrow she will be at the relatively new collegiate level of Kadic Academy, which means the cost of tuition will go up, not to mention the cost of room and board. After forcibly cutting herself off from Jeremie's financial charity, she is finding it hard to stay afloat while getting paid only a little bit over the minimum wage at her meager job. She figured she would rather live in the Hermitage than in the dormitories again anyway.

The process of tidying up the house has been quite a grueling one. She started from the top, where the bedrooms and bathrooms are located, because she knows for sure that she will spend most of her time up there anyway. She rearranged furniture to create a study room of sorts, swept, mopped, and vacuumed the entire level of the house, and then proceeded to do the very same thing with the main level. That was when she dozed off on the kitchen floor, just after polishing it.

With a sigh, Aelita glances at her wristwatch. 16:49. Soon the sun will begin to set, forcing her to retire upstairs for the night because there is no electricity yet.

Closing cupboards and drawers along the way, she walks toward a door that has remained untouched throughout the entire spring-cleaning process. It is the door to the basement of the Hermitage, a place Aelita has dreaded for the past three years. Memories still too poignant for her to come to terms with lay behind that nondescript door and down the carpeted stairs. Her hands tremble and her breath catches in her throat as she twists the dusty doorknob and slowly swings open the creaky old door. It takes a whole lots of courage for her to descend the damp staircase, and her hand grips the railing so hard that her knuckles ache and her palm becomes filled with splinters from the aging wood. And then it all hits her.

The memory of the men in black suits storming through the basement door and marching down the very same steps fills her mind. She hears her mother's protests when they grabbed her and dragged her up the stairs. She feels the terror building up in her chest again, almost like she's experiencing the event for the first time. Unable to breathe and unable to continue any further into the basement, Aelita slowly sits down and put her head on her knees, her fingers tangling in her long pink hair. She is acutely aware of something poking at her lower back, but she is unsure whether or not the sensation is a figment of her hyperactive imagination. Tentatively, she reaches behind and scratches the back of her hand against metal. Realizing that it is not a gun like she imagined it to be, she twists her torso to take a look at what she is dealing with. To her surprise, there is a hole in the step just above the one she is sitting on. The hole is large, too large to have been created by termites or rodents; it was definitely created on purpose.

Even more shocking than the gaping hole in the staircase is what is in it: a large black spiral notebook. One of the spirals had come undone and that is what was poking into her back. Aelita reaches into the hole and retrieves the book, unsure of what to think.

 _Maybe it's a diary left behind by one of my parents_ , she muses.

Flipping through the notebook yields no answers; the writing is mostly unintelligible but for a few choice words and phrases. She is able to see the word "X.A.N.A." scrawled down in her father's characteristic handwriting, written down far too many times throughout the notebook.

XANA. Now there is a name she never thought she would hear again. After shutting down the Supercomputer, the Lyoko Warriors had vowed never to talk about anything having to do with the virtual world ever again. With the discovery of this notebook comes a frenzy of confusing choices for Aelita: hide it away forever, and never uncover what it holds? Keep it for herself as a sort of keepsake to remind her of her father's peculiarity? Or give it to Jeremie and risk having another argument?

 _I would rather find out more about my father, even if it means risking what little I have left with Jeremie_ , she inwardly convinces herself.

* * *

"Man, I hate school."

"Odd, we haven't even had our first day of classes yet. Chill." Ulrich picks at the sleeves of his jacket as he says this, rolling his eyes at the dramatic blonde.

Odd whines. "But I don't want to. I have Dr. Fumet as my history teacher. Am I even going to learn anything before one day before the final exam? Why do I even have to take history if it isn't art history? I'm going to die."

"You'll be fine, Odd. Just use the class time as nap time instead!"

The whole group bursts out laughing at Jeremie's word, because they are so true. Dr. Fumet has a tendency to go off on tangents during his lectures, and sometimes it gets so bad that some students fall in such a deep sleep that they experience REM.

Aelita forces a smile onto her face. It isn't that she's not enjoying herself, but she just is not feeling the mirth like she used to before. Not with the notebook in her bag, waiting to be revealed.

"Hey, Aelita, are you going to eat that?"

"What kind of a stupid ass question is that, Odd? She's a vegetarian; of course she isn't going to eat it!" Sissi retorts, poking her boyfriend in the shoulder and making a face at him. That coaxes a chuckle from Aelita.

It has been almost a year since Odd and Sissi started dating. When they officially announced that they were couple, it was campus-wide news. How had the headmaster's daughter managed to land the ultimate Casanova of the school, the breaker of all hearts? The truth is, they always were interested in one another but were stuck in a perpetually never-ending love-hate relationship. Even now, there are remnants of that dynamic between the two of them.

As for "Stone-Faced Stern," as all the ladies refer to him, all these years later and he is still adamant against publicly pursuing Yumi's affections, and still just as oblivious when it comes to acknowledging his growing fanbase among the younger girls of the school.

As Odd wolfs down the bacon on the tray, Aelita takes a sip of her tea and glances over at Jeremie. She nearly chokes at what she sees—he's already looking right at her and frowning, eyebrows furrowed as though he wants to say something. Clearly, he is still confused and hurt by the way things ended between the two of them last semester. She quickly averts her eyes from his.

"I'm going to head to class now. I'll see you," she says abruptly, pushing her tray closer to Odd and standing up. Before she leaves, however, she reaches into her bag and plops the notebook down in front of Jeremie, right onto his laptop—she is well aware that this is one of Jeremie's pet peeves, and he hisses in response. Before anyone can have time to protest, she's out of the cafeteria and on her way across the campus grounds. Confusion flickers across Jeremie's features as he stares at the offending notebook in front of him.

"Whaz tha' 'bout?" Odd questions him with a mouth full of bacon, earning him a non-verbal scolding from Sissi.

"Not really sure," he answers. Realizing that Odd might actually be referring to Aelita's behavior and not the notebook, he looks up to interpret Odd's facial expression but finds no sign of suspicion on his face.

On the other hand, Sissi is well aware of just what is going on between Aelita and Jeremie, even if Jeremie himself doesn't seem to know. "You should open the notebook," she ventures. She thinks it may be a letter.

Jeremie opens it. His eyes widen in surprise as he takes in its contents. "Is this what I think it is?"

"What?" Odd, Ulrich, and Sissi look at each other, not having expected such a unanimous interest in this simple black notebook.

"Writings on Lyo—" Jeremie stops himself. Not only is he not willing to be the one to bring up the forbidden topic, he can't. Not while Sissi is around, at least.

"On what?" asks Sissi.

""On… on an online game that we used to play together." He fumbles over his words, but the lie is convincing enough for Sissi. Ulrich and Odd share a look, but say nothing more.

* * *

 _Mathematics is a bore, as usual_. Jeremie groans and lays his head down on his desk. It has been just over a half hour of his two-hour long business calculus class. It is one of those courses that everybody is required to take at some point in their college career. Not even a student as gifted as he is can be permitted to skip the class. So there he sits, finished in thirty minutes what it will take some other in the room two hours to complete. _Diagnostic tests be damned_.

He recalls the notebook given to him earlier by Aelita. _I suppose I can skim through it now, while I have some time_ , he thinks. "…Lyoko…Replika…what? None of this makes any sense," he mumbles.

Indeed, the shorthand is dated, and many of the sentences do not make proper grammatical sense, as if the writer was rushing to get everything written down.

"Climb the leaf to the stripes beside the metallic sunset and honeycombs," he mutters under his breath. _What the hell is this? It's characteristic of manual encryption… but I've never heard of this method before._

Jeremie spends an hour "reading" through the nonsense in an attempt to sort through it, until he reaches the end of the notebook. What he sees chills him to the bone. Written down in plain, unencrypted, capital letters are the words:

IN SHORT, X.A.N.A. CAN NOT BE

TRULY DEFEATED WITHOUT

THE RECALCITRANCE CODE!

And just beneath it are two signatures, one of which very obviously belongs to the late Franz Hopper, the genius behind Lyoko's existence. The other signature is unfamiliar and not legible.

The second signature means one of two things: either it belongs to Aelita's mother, which is unlikely, or someone else in France is just as aware of the Supercomputer as the Lyoko Warriors are.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Link to the song Yumi listens to, for immersive reading if you so wish. watch?v=x8SO2BwNg4k**

* * *

The campus is bustling with activity and filled with school-aged children bouncing off the walls with first day jitters. Among these children is Xavier Gosselin, one of the most popular guys in the 10th grade. With a scowl on his face, he says, "Dude, this seriously blows."

"Tell me about it," deadpans Hiroki, head down on the desk. "This is stupid."

"NO TALKING IN DETENTION," Jim's voice bellows form the other side of the auxiliary library. "IN FACT, NO TALKING IN A LIBRARY AT ALL. IT'S RUDE!"

Hiroki stifles a laugh and lifts his head up to look at Xavier, who is seated directly across from him.

"Sometimes, I genuinely think Jim is a certified idiot, and that it's one of the things that he'd rather not talk about," Xavier says as he rolls his eyes.

Hiroki shrugs. "It's whatever. I'm used to it by now, especially from the things my sister used to tell me about him." He takes an exasperated breath. "I just don't see what's so bad about having a first day of school food fight."

"It was rad! The best part was when Steve totally nailed one right on that weird girl Tamiya."

"She's not weird," Hiroki blurts out, forgetting that he needs to keep his voice down."

"QUIET OVER THERE."

Xavier laughs, but Hiroki doesn't. He continues. "Like I was saying, she's not all that weird actually. She's really nice. You're just salty as fuck because she won't suck you off."

Again, Xavier scowls. "Who does she think she is anyway? I'm one of the cool guys, and she's just that lame chick who is always in the shadow of that redhead babe of yours."

"Tamiya is her own person too, you know. And she has every right to turn you or any other guy down. Sorry to break it to you, man."

To most of the boys at the high school level of Kadic, Hiroki Ishiyama is a confusing individual. He makes no secret of his utmost respect for the opposite gender, but on the other hand is unafraid to bed any girls who throw themselves at him.

"Whatever, bro. I'm over it," Xavier fibs, fiddling his thumbs in agitation, clearly not over the issue at hand. There is a long moment of silence between the two boys until Xavier speaks up again. "Yo, I'm not tryna be in detention forever."

Hiroki raises his brows. "I'm not about this either. Let's bail. I've got to get home soon anyway, or my sister will literally kill me."

* * *

Yumi pulls up the zipper of her leather jacket in anticipation of a windy ride. She loves driving with all of the windows down, music blasting like she doesn't care, because she doesn't.

She puts the key in the ignition and starts the car. Just as she's about to back out of the driveway, her phone vibrates in her butt pocket. She debates just continuing to drive and ignoring the text message for thirty minutes, which would be a bad idea if the message were from her parents. Pulling out her phone, she sees that the message is from Jeremie. It reads:

 _Hey._

 _Urgent meeting._

 _20:00, my room._

 _Oh, this can't be good_ , she thinks. _The last times we had urgent meetings were for the Marabounta and the Kolossus._

She shakes that thought out of her head. _There's no way that this meeting could have anything to do with Lyoko. XANA is dead, and the Supercomputer has been off for three whole years. It would be dumb to think such a thing._

Tossing her cell phone onto the passenger seat, she resumes backing out of the driveway, and puts on some uptempo beats that Aelita introduced her to the other day. Before Aelita became a DJ—thanks to the Subdigitals—Yumi used to listen only to metal. Now she regularly gets music recommendations in the electronic genre, and they aren't half bad. Of course, it certainly takes some getting used to, even if the song is "bangin'," as Odd so eloquently puts it. In the words of Aelita: "There is more to life than just Evanescence!"

Technically speaking, Yumi shouldn't be one to blast music while driving, let alone enjoy it. As a cadet in the police academy, it is in her contract that she "shall exhibit the highest standard of civil obedience to lead as an example to the general public." But she does not care, and that is that. Her car is unmarked, and she isn't wearing her uniform or anything with the logo on it, so she figures she can get away with it this time.

Orly International Airport is in Paris, so it is just under two hours from Kadic Academy, which is in Sceaux. Normally, Yumi wouldn't need to pick her parents up from the airport in the middle of an evening class, but since her parents' car is currently out of commission, she is temporarily their chauffeur.

About two weeks ago, her parents were hit from the side by a distracted driver, and their car overturned. Luckily, the only serious injury was a broken arm incurred by her mother—the other car had hit on her side. Her father was even more lucky than his wife, for he only got superficial cuts and minor abrasions from the accident. It is unfortunate that the couple had to travel to Japan in such a condition, but Mrs. Ishiyama's cousin was in hospice due to pass away very soon, and she wanted to see her cousin one last time. The funeral service took place yesterday.

Yumi frowns. _I wonder what exactly happened to her. Maybe mom will give me more details now that she's seen for herself?_ She glances down at the time, illuminated by a soft orange glow. It reads 18:55. She hears her phone vibrate on the seat.

"I guess I'm gonna have to be late to this meeting of his."

* * *

It's 19:52 and Jeremie is still alone in his dorm. He paces around the room, a red pen in his mouth, and all of the notes that he has ever taken are strewn across his desk. His door is propped open as per fire safety rules for having multiple people in a single-occupancy dormroom.

"Einstein! There better be a damn good reason for this. Sissi and I were supposed to go out tonight."

"My apologies. You can do a rain check for some other time." Jeremie's voice is monotonal.

Odd is taken aback. "Geez…what's _your_ problem?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

"Yeah, I hope so," Ulrich adds to the conversation as he walks in, putting on a jacket over his shirt. "I left Pencak Silat practice early for this."

"You wore a long-sleeved shirt to Pencak Silat? Are you insane?" asks a baffled Odd.

Ulrich becomes defensive. "I wear whatever I want, and that's none of your business, dude."

Odd shrugs and lets the topic drop for now, but Ulrich's words sting. They have been roommates for six years; a simple observation shouldn't be something to get fussy about.

It is silent in the room when Aelita walks in, textbook in hand. "Sorry. I got too into my homework." She makes it a point to sit on the floor as opposed to sitting on Jeremie's bed.

"You okay?" Ulrich asks, an eyebrow raised.

"Yeah… yeah, I'm fine."

At that moment, Yumi runs into the room, panting like she just ran a marathon. "Sorry I'm late. Had to pick the 'rents up from the airport, then I ran here from home since it's faster than using the car."

Jeremie doesn't respond. He closes the door behind Yumi then, without turning around to face his friends, begins to speak. "Do you want the short or long version?"

"Just spit it out, Einstein."

Jeremie takes a beat to breathe deeply before turning around, leaning on the door, and saying the three words he never ever imagined would leave his lips. "XANA is back."

If someone were to drop a pin right at that very moment, they would have heard a clink against the carpet loud and clear. Silence does not even begin to describe the hush that falls over the group of young adults in that stuffy room.

Jeremie walks over to his desk and picks up the black spiral notebook Aelita gave to him earlier in the day. "This book has in it writing that are coded in many different ways via manual encryption. Some of the encryptions are easier to crack than other—there's a whole section in here written in binary code, thank goodness.

"According to Franz Hopper, there are two things we did wrong. The first thing we did was underestimating the sheer number of Replikas. There were 505 terabytes of free space in the Supercomputer before XANA started spawning Replikas. Assuming that each Replika takes up approximately 5 terabytes—that's 5000 gigabytes—of space, it is safe to assume that there were 101 Replikas created by XANA; each one is somewhere on the network, being powered by abandoned supercomputers worldwide. When I ran the multi-agent program to destroy all the Replikas, it understandably bugged up and only destroyed 50 of them. I know now that it wasn't nearly enough, at all.

"The second thing we did wrong was to attempt to use the multi-agent program as a super-antivirus, when its purpose was to destroy all of the Replikas. When the multi-agent program bugged up, it did not destroy XANA, it merely sent it running for the hills. Of course, it was weakened by the program, but not too significantly.

"In Hopper's notebook is a clear warning that the only way to rid this world of XANA is to destroy _all_ of the Replikas so that he has no place to run, then use a specific code called the Recalcitrant Code. But there is no indication of what this code is comprised of."

"So," Ulrich interrupts, "basically, XANA has been alive this entire fucking time?"

"Ulrich…" Yumi warns him to tone it down.

"No. Do _not_ tell me to calm down, Yumi. This is a life-threatening situation and we've been doing nothing but sitting on our asses for three fucking years!"

"Look, man, it isn't anyone's fault. We did the best we could back then, and we can do it again now." Odd clenches his fists as the words leave his mouth.

Once again, silence blankets the room. Everyone is in shock. Nobody knows what to do or what to say next.

Finally, Aelita speaks up. "How do you think _I_ feel, Ulrich? I totally understand your pain. To think that…" she struggles to hold back an audible sob, refusing to sound pathetic, but the tears are already falling. "…That my father's sacrifice was completely in vain… it breaks my heart. But it also makes me want to truly end this once and for all, for humanity and for him. Who's with me?"

The others nod solemnly, unable to properly vocalize their feelings as eloquently as Aelita.

"So what's the next step?" Yumi asks of Jeremie.

"Tomorrow I'm going to start a Superscan and see what happens. We can go from there." He turns his back to everyone in a nonverbal dismissal. He pulls his chair out, pushes his glasses up his nose, and continues re-reading through at least four years of notes.

One by one, the Warriors sullenly leave the room, the weight of dejection heavy on each of their shoulders. Just as Aelita is about to get up from the floor to follow everyone else out, Jeremie calls out to her.

"Aelita! Wait—"

"Don't. Not now."

"If we're going to be a team again, then we need to talk this out and get it sorted out."

Aelita turns to face him. "There is nothing to 'sort out' here, Jeremie. You've already proven to me that I cannot trust you."

Hurt, Jeremie falters before saying his next words. "Look, I know that I should have been honest with you about what I wanted out of our relationship—"

"You led me on, Jeremie!" She takes a small step toward him. "You waited for me to truly want to give myself to you, and then you tossed me aside like some old electronic. That's not the way love works." A sob broke through her voice before she could stop it.

"I was ashamed… I knew you would react adversely if I told you."

"So you waited for me to hear it practically behind my own back!?"

Jeremie gets up from his seat and walks over to her. He takes both of her hands in both of his, and looks her right in the eyes. "I'm sorry you had to find out the way you did. I never intended for you to hear my conversation with Theo—"

"Save it, Jeremie. I'm not mad because of your sexuality. I'm mad because you couldn't trust me enough to tell me. Did you think I was going to hate you because you're asexual? Did you think I suddenly wouldn't want a future with you anymore?"

Jeremie cannot find it in himself to answer her in the affirmative.

But she understands what he means with his silence. "Oh my God. You're worse than Her—"

Before she can finish saying Pichon's name, her back collides with the wooden door behind her, and she hits her head hard against it. It takes her a moment to realize that Jeremie's hands are on her shoulders, pinning her to the door so painfully tight that she is beginning to lose feeling in her upper arms. The look on his face genuinely terrifies her.

"Don't you _dare_ compare me to that son of a bitch. You know better."

Her response is with a small voice. "Ow, you're hurting me, Jeremie," she almost whispers, fresh tears filling her eyelids.

Jeremie is shocked. He quickly releases Aelita and runs his hands through his thick blonde hair nervously. "What did I just do?"

Aelita crosses her arms over her chest, holding her shoulders where he just gripped them, and shakes her head in total disbelief. "We are over, Jeremie." She turns and runs out the door before he can even process what she's said.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: A selection from the warm-up playlist, for immersive reading if you so wish. watch/?v=c9O1NDwtuZI**

* * *

Aelita is still in bed when the sun reaches high noon. She stirs but does not get up even though she is wide-awake. The day is almost over and she has missed her three classes for the day. The gang is most likely in the cafeteria, probably talking about last night's meeting, probably not. There's no way for her to be absolutely sure since she isn't there with them. Perhaps Sissi is in earshot, preventing any real discussions from taking place.

She rolls onto her side, trying her best to ignore the massive headache that stubbornly has persisted throughout the morning. Despite the pain being so bad that she can feel her pulse in her head, she reaches beneath her pillow to retrieve her cell phone. Five text messages. One from Sissi asking where she is, one from Yumi asking the same thing, a follow-up from Sissi saying "the rec room is sooo live right now," a single question mark from Odd, and a text from her _ex_ -boyfriend. Aelita makes a face as she reads the message from Jeremie:

At some point today,

can you head down to the

factory?

Seeing Jeremie again is the very last thing on Aelita's mind at the moment. Maybe she would have felt less hostile toward him if he hadn't slammed her against the door in his anger. Him losing his temper with her last night frightened her more than it had the first time it happened, because at least that time it wasn't directed completely at her.

It was a few months ago when it first happened. They were listening to the national public radio broadcast together on the way home from a movie date. Aelita hadn't felt like driving, so she'd given the keys to Jeremie to take over. The debate was about Apologetics and how to go about using it to whet the appetites of atheists who are willing to discuss religion in a civil manner. The extensive talking about Christianity hit a nerve and was agitating to Jeremie, but he didn't change the radio station because he could tell that Aelita's interest was piqued. Instead of vocalizing his distress or even just changing the station during a commercial break, his irritation manifested itself in him driving twice the speed limit in a residential area. It was extremely reckless of him to do, as he could have easily struck and killed an animal or a child that might have suddenly appeared and stepped into the street. Eventually, though, he realized what he was doing and slowed down, but Aelita was a shaken by the incident, although she never said anything about it.

Last night was the first time he had ever laid a hand on her with seemingly malicious intent.

Aelita slowly climbs out of bed and takes off her oversized pajama shirt. She examines her shoulders. _Of course they're bruised. Why wouldn't they be?_ she tells herself.

Reluctantly, she puts on sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt; it's likely to be freezing cold in the Factory, because that is the ideal atmosphere for the Supercomputer in order to prevent overheating and subsequent short-circuiting.

She heads down the stairs and out the front door of the house, careful to remain as quiet and as undetected as possible. The younger Kadic kids like to venture out into the forest to see the legendary "Haunted Hermitage" for themselves. The two most popular times of day to explore the property are late afternoon—after classes are done for the day—and in the evening after dinnertime.

Aelita walks around the side of the building to the heavy door that is the secret entrance to the sewer tunnel. The door slams shut behind her, likely exciting any children observing the building from afar. If she didn't have a massive headache, she probably would have run through the tunnel, but she leisurely strolls through since she is in no particular rush.

When she finally reaches the sewer itself, she opts against using her scooter to get to the other side; she figures she would rather not make her head spin anymore than it already is.

* * *

Down in the Lab, the tension in the air is almost tangible. Aelita can feel it as soon as she walks out of the elevator toward Jeremie, who is hunched over in the chair, furiously typing away at the keyboard, eyes glued to the four monitors in front of him. He doesn't hear Aelita's entrance.

She stands besides him and examines the screens. On one screen are the results from the Superscan, and the next screen displays the Localization results.

"There are _61_ Replikas now?" she asks, purposely forgoing the formalities of greeting him.

"XANA was able to create ten more during these past three years."

"Were you able to find out where exactly he is?"

"No. But, it's safe to assume that he is in one of the Supercomputers that hosts Replikas, which narrows the location down to 1 of 61 places."

Aelita shrugs. "It's better than having him roam around the network wherever he pleases."

Jeremie nods in agreement. "That's true." He points to the Holomap. "This is Carthage, and these," he points at a third monitor, "are all the locations within the sector containing data crucial to the Recalcitrance Code."

"I'll head down to the Scanners then," Aelita says without a second thought.

Jeremie chuckles to himself as Aelita enters the elevator. _We make a great team, even if we don't want to._

The Factory Interface alerts Jeremie that someone has entered a scanner. He types out the command code for transferring the ID card of the individual to the Interface monitor.

"Transfer Aelita."

Her ID card comes up and again he smiles. He had almost forgotten what she looked like with her hair in a pixie cut. Nowadays her hair cascades down her back in soft waves of pink. _I'll have to update everyone's ID cards at some point._

"Scanner Aelita."

The monitor displays a real-time animation of the scanning process as the Supercomputer uploads Aelita's virtual body into its memory. He presses enter as he says, "Virtualization!"

Jeremie swivels his chair to angle towards a different monitor, the one that shows Lyoko's terrain and the warriors' statistics. Aelita's yellow triangle is in the Core Zone, but there is no audio coming through. "Aelita?"

No response.

On the other end, Aelita cannot get in contact with Jeremie either. "Jeremie? Jeremie, can you hear me?" When she receives no response, her mind automatically imagines a worst-case scenario: perhaps a tower has been activated somewhere and Jeremie may be under attack by a spectre. But, if that were the case, there should be monsters surrounding her any minute now.

But no monsters come. Instead, she finds herself devirtualized after several minutes of calling out to Jeremie with no response.

When the scanner opens after materializing her, Aelita hurriedly climbs up the ladder through the hatch that leads to the Lab. "Jeremie?"

"I'm right here."

She turns to him and sees that he was just about to head down to the scanner room with the elevator.

"I was worried," they both say at the same time; they laugh together.

"What happened?" Aelita asks.

"For some reason the audio is bugged up, so I manually devirtualized you as quickly as the Supercomputer would allow."

"I thought something happened to you."

"And _I_ thought something happened to _you_." Jeremie pauses. "I'm glad we're both okay."

Hesitantly, Aelita replies. "Yeah. So am I."

* * *

William fiddles with the neon yellow armband wrapped around his left upper arm. He never has liked the feeling of the captain's armband constricting his bicep, but there is no reason to complain about it.

It's the pregame portion of Kadic Academy's first scrimmage of the soccer season. The opponent is already on-site and warming up their players. That's one of the perks of being the home team—you have as much time as you need to change from street clothes to team kits, warm-up, pep talk, and everything in between. Another thing is the benefit of being able to choose the warm-up music playlist, which tends to be the same playlist used in practices for the sake of continuity. As captain of the team, the privilege of picking what songs are on the playlist goes to William, and he doesn't disappoint. American rap is his favorite genre, and he especially loves the songs that are bass-heavy. Hearing the music through the high-end field loudspeakers gets his team really pumped. Of course, he has to find clean versions—or better yet, instrumental versions when clean versions don't exist—and even then he still has to get the list approved by the athletic manager.

William is sitting on the ground behind the bench stretching his back by touching the tips of his bright orange cleats. He absentmindedly listens to the conversations of his teammates around him.

"This is the team that fouls like crazy, right?"

"Shit, I left my water bottle in the locker room!"

"This is the team with that wannabe Pelletier."

"Man, I can't wait to play him in a regular match and not a scrim. We're gonna beat his ass."

That catches William's attention, and he scoots around on his butt to face the direction of the voice. "Is that so, Roux? Pelletier is here?"

Bastien Roux nods and points him out across the field; there he is reclining on the bench with his legs open in a wide v. William refrains from making a face of disgust.

"So it's true then… he transferred from Monod School."

"Transferred? Oh, hell no. He was _expelled_ , mate." Jean-Baptiste Pujol pipes up.

"Expelled? What the hell for?" William resists the urge to let his lips curl into a smirk at the misfortune of his enemy.

"Nobody is saying," Tristan Brossard joins in the conversation. "Everybody on both sides is keeping mum about it. It's all very hush-hush." He pauses. "Weird, isn't it? I wonder what he did… hey—didn't _you_ used to go to Monod?"

"ALL RIGHT! BRING IT IN!" The coach yells for all of his players to gather before him.

It was an interesting occurrence when, after Jim Morales stepped down from the position of collegiate coach in order to return to the secondary level, Anton Dragonov was hired to fill the position. Kadic Academy's mascot is a dragon, and now the collegiate coach of the school's pride and joy has a last name with "dragon" in it.

"This is the first scrim of the year, so what we do here tonight may very well set the tone for the rest of the year. We have to give it our all from the very beginning, and we _have_ to run the plays, guys. Got it?"

There is a general murmur of agreement amongst the players.

"All right, Dragons on three." William prompts everyone, "One, two, three—"

"DRAGONS!"

And the whistle blows to signal the start of the game.


End file.
